Princess of Thorns

by Unknown

  “And we don’t have time to waste,” Niklaas continues. “Either put the dress on, or—”

  “But there’s a privy at the left of the cottage,” I say, wondering why Lord Heven would need two privies when he no doubt has servants to empty his chamber pot.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Niklaas growls beneath his breath. “Grow up and put the damn dress on, Ror. I’d wear the flaming thing myself if it would fit, but—”

  “Come with me.” I snatch my pack from the ground, stuffing the dress into the top before slinging the strap over one arm and claiming my staff from against the wall. “I want to look at something. If my instincts are wrong, I’ll put the dress on and we’ll go.”

  Right after you finish losing your mind when you realize you’ve been deceived.

  Before Niklaas can argue, I lift my leg and climb out the window, landing softly on the ground outside and turning to look up. The windows on the second and third floors of the cottage are dark.

  With a deep breath and a wish for luck, I pad silently across the rocks to the outhouse. As soon as I get within sniffing distance, I know it’s not what it appears to be. There’s no odor lingering in the air, only the cold, conifer-scented breeze blowing in from the mountains on the other side of the gorge.

  “What are you doing?” Niklaas hisses as I tug open the heavy wooden door, revealing a circular staircase leading into the rock below our feet.

  “Finding the other way out.” I glance back at Niklaas with a smile, a smile that vanishes when a lamp flares to life on the third floor of the cottage.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Niklaas

  “Niklaas!” Ror grips my sleeve. “There’s a light in—”

  Before he can finish, the bell atop Lord Heven’s home begins to ring, a deep, resounding gong, gong that foretells the end of the world.

  Or the end of our escape, and of Ror’s life come morning.

  “Go!” I shove him down the stairs ahead of me. The front of Lord Heven’s house is guarded and the common beyond teeming with people. There will be no chance of slipping by them unnoticed now. We’ll have to hope Ror’s gut is right and this staircase leads to a way out of the exile settlement, because if it doesn’t …

  I won’t think about what happens if it doesn’t. I won’t think about Ror dead or worse because I was too focused on saving my own skin to consider how dangerous a journey to the Feeding Hills could be for the prince of Norvere.

  Ror rushes down the stairs carved through the mountain’s crust with his usual speed, moving so swiftly he seems to hover over the ground. I lose sight of him before we’ve spun around twice. By the time I reach the bottom, racing through an archway onto a ledge where kite-like contraptions sit in rows facing the gorge, Ror is across the field-sized expanse, throwing his pack to the ground before meeting two exile men with his staff.

  I drop my pack and draw my sword, but before I reach his side Ror has knocked one man unconscious and sent the second sailing off the edge of the outcrop. The exile screams as he falls, a cringe-inspiring cry that seems to go on forever, leaving no doubt how deep the chasm is between this mountain and the next.

  Ror stands staring over the side, breathing fast. “I didn’t mean to,” he says, turning to me with frightened eyes. “It was an accident, Niklaas. It was an—”

  I grab him by the back of the neck and bring my face even with his. “It’s all right,” I say, willing strength into him, knowing there isn’t time for him to dwell on his first killing. “Don’t think about it. We have to escape, or it will be for nothing.”

  Ror clenches his jaw and nods. I race back across the ledge, snatching Ror’s pack and my own in one hand before sprinting to the nearest oversized kite.

  “It’s a glider,” Ror says. “We should be able to fly it off the edge.”

  Fly it. That’s what I’d assumed, but still … By the gods … Fly.

  Up close, the contraption is larger than it first appeared, with a wooden seat big enough for two and a basket underneath for luggage. The basket isn’t big enough for both packs, so I shove Ror’s beneath the seat and toss mine to the ground, knowing he has more gold in his purse than I do.

  “Send the others over the side.” I move past Ror, slashing the ropes binding the machines to the ledge. Ror hurries behind me, hurling the contraptions, some even larger than the one we’ve chosen, over the side with surprising strength. But then fear makes everyone a little stronger, a little faster.

  I pray it will make us fast enough.

  I help Ror hurl the last glider into the gorge, and in a few minutes we’ve cleared the ledge, ensuring none of the exiles will be follow us off of it.

  “Take a seat, I’ll push off,” I say, sheathing my sword as I jog back to the remaining glider, relieved to see the archway leading to the stairs still empty.

  “No,” Ror says. “We have to—”

  “Enough arguing!” I turn back to him, my scowl digging into my face like claws. “Do you want to die here?”

  “No, but I don’t want to die on that thing, either!” He shoves his staff into its harness and reaches for the rope tying the glider to the ground, glaring at me as he tugs it free. “You don’t sit on it, you lie on your stomach to keep the weight balanced and give you access to the controls.”

  “You’ve steered one before?” I ask, anger vanishing in a wave of relief.

  “Not one so large.” He motions for me to help him lift the machine by the bar above the seat. “But the mountain Fey have gliders they use to travel from mountaintop to mountaintop. I’ve watched one being steered more than twice.”

  “Watched?” I ask, backing up with Ror as he steps away from the ledge.

  “Watched closely.”

  “How closely?” I ask, pulse speeding.

  “Closely enough … I think,” he says, blowing a breath out between pursed lips. “We’ll need to get a running start and then—”

  Footsteps sound from the archway. The exiles are on the stairs, and we’re out of time.

  “Run!” I shout, forcing myself to charge toward the edge.

  Ror launches into motion beside me. “Reach for the lever on your side after we jump,” he pants. “The levers control the wings. I’ll tell you when to shift yours.”

  I glance up, finding not one but two levers below the bar we’re holding. But before I can ask Ror what the extra lever is for, we’re taking our last step on solid ground and hurtling out into the breathless void.

  I land on my stomach with a sizzle of nerves, like lightning skittering across water. My belly pitches and my throat squeezes tight, and then our momentum runs out and we begin to fall. The nose of the machine tilts down, down, aiming into the gorge while my muscles scream and my heart punches my chest like a fist. My mind’s eye flashes on the man Ror killed—bloodied lips peeled into a smile as he reaches dead arms out to greet me—and my vision swims, terror twisting my insides so fiercely I forget how to breathe.

  “Pull the lever!” Ror slaps my hand, and I reach for the lever, yanking it toward me, sending us into an even steeper dive,

  down,

  down,

  down, so fast the wind stings my cheeks as the glider picks up speed, hurtling toward the rocks below, and I know it’s over, all over, and Ror and I are dead and there’s nothing left to do but pray to—

  “Put it back and pull the other one! The other one!” Ror screams, straining to reach past me. “Pull it, Niklaas!”

  I reach for the controls, but my hands are stupid with fear, my fingers shot through with aging stiffness and bound in winter mittens. It takes an eternity to shift the lower lever back into its previous position, and a second eternity to drag the upper level down, sending the glider soaring up and over the gorge.

  Up, by all the merciful gods, up. I’m so grateful I can taste it, feel it stinging up my throat and into
my nose, making my eyes water with relief.

  As my heart lifts and my stomach shudders, I look down, expecting to see the treetops brushing my dangling legs, but the trees are still far below. We lost less than a field in the dive and are now sailing briskly along on an updraft, the nose of our glider aimed at the opening between two mountains.

  “This one is different,” Ror says, sounding as breathless as I feel. “Your levers are up and down. Mine are left and right.” He adjusts one and the glider shifts to the left, centering us on the passage between the mountains. “We’ll be all right. We’ll be fine from here on out,” he says, though I’m not sure who he’s trying to comfort—me or himself.

  “The ogre queen will have you!” Lord Heven’s shout carries clearly through the cold air, lifting the hairs on my neck. “She will, child. One way or another! Return and make your capture worth something to your people!”

  “Go sit on a flaming pole and burn,” Ror mutters, but he doesn’t turn to look at the man who would have bartered his prince’s life for a kingdom of his own.

  “How long will we stay up?” I risk a glance over my shoulder to where Lord Heven stands on the ledge, surrounded by armed men. One exile pulls an arrow into his bow, but Heven stops him with a hand, confirming that the queen must want Ror taken alive.

  “I don’t know,” Ror says. “It depends on the wind.”

  “They aren’t shooting at us,” I say. “But I’m betting they’ll be sending a party through the mountains to meet us. The farther we get on this thing, the better.”

  “Well … we’ll definitely get farther than we would have on foot.”

  “Yes, we will.” I silently send up a thank-you to whichever god is responsible for our get away. “We were lucky.”

  “About time,” Ror mumbles beneath his breath.

  I sigh in agreement. It is about time. Until a few moments ago, this quest has seemed as cursed as all my father’s sons. “How lucky depends on how far we fly,” I say, willing the wind to hold strong. “We’ll need a generous head start to make up for the fact that the exiles will be on horseback and know the secret ways through the mountains.”

  “I’m sorry,” Ror says. “I’ll get Alama back for you. If I can.”

  “The horses are the least of our worries.” I know it’s true, but I can’t help the pang of grief that tightens my chest when I realize I will never see Alama again. Since Usio was transformed, Alama has been my oldest friend.

  “The fate reader said I would lose Button and need money for another horse,” Ror says. “I hate to lose such good animals, but at least we have enough gold to purchase new ones, though we may have to go without saddles if we can’t make a tight bargain.”

  “What else did she say?” I ask, shivering. I tell myself it’s the crisp air blowing down the neck of my shirt that’s responsible, but I can’t help thinking of the reader’s rheumy eye and the black scabs pocking her skin. She was in communion with dark forces, and a part of me fears what it means for her predictions to be coming true.

  “She said I would be safe in green hills,” Ror says. “By a bewitched stream.”

  I grunt. “Obviously, she was wrong. Or lying through her rotten teeth.”

  “I don’t think so. You said the exile’s waterfall was controlled by a lever. It was an invention. Men made it. Bewitching is the work of magic, not men.”

  “Crimsin said her aunt was a magic-worker. We’ll have to see if the hills are green and the streams bewitched in Beschuttz.”

  Ror sighs. “I suppose we have no choice but to seek refuge there.”

  “Crimsin saved your life, so … Beschuttz seems like the most logical course.”

  For you, anyway. The most logical course for me would be to demand Ror tell me where Aurora is hidden and start seeking the princess as soon as we land. My time grows too short to be swept up in anyone’s quest but my own.

  But I’m already part of Ror’s quest, and obligated to protect him, at least from the dangers I’m responsible for introducing into his life. I knew better than to take him to the Feeding Hills, and I know better than to think he’ll last long without me watching his back. He’s like a headstrong little brother to me now. I could no more run off and leave him than I could have abandoned Usio to face sunrise on his eighteenth birthday alone.

  “You’re right,” Ror says. “It’s just getting so hard to trust … anything.”

  “You can trust me,” I say, hoping I’m telling the truth, and that I will continue to make honorable choices when I can count the days I have left to live on one hand.

  Perhaps Ror can sense my doubt, because he doesn’t respond, he only pulls in a breath and holds it as we drift between the two mountains and come out the other side, sailing over a wide valley with more giant trees shooting up from the ground like whale spray rising above the ocean.

  “Pretty,” I whisper.

  “Beautiful,” Ror agrees. “Though I doubt we’ll find it pretty after being lost in it for days.”

  “We won’t be lost. See that mountain?” I point to the tallest of the Feeding Hills, a behemoth already covered in a dusting of snow. “That’s Mount Ever. I had a view of it from my guest room while visiting Pennly’s princesses in their summer home last Sunstyne. If we head straight for it, then around the left side, we won’t lose our way.”

  “How many days until we reach Beschuttz?” Ror adjusts one of the levers on his side, aiming the glider for Mount Ever’s left flank.

  “We’ll make it through the hills in two days, three at the most.” I gauge the distance between our glider and the mountain with a critical eye, knowing distances appear shorter when viewed from above. “From there it will be another day to the borders of Pennly, and we should be in Frysk a day after that. I’m not sure where Beschuttz is, but the country is small. We should find it fairly quickly.”

  “That’s assuming we’re on foot the entire time,” Ror says. “We can purchase horses in Pennly. If you have friends there, maybe we—”

  “I didn’t say I have friends there.” King Thewen would welcome me back with a stint in his dungeon if he knew I’d returned against his orders. “In fact, it’s best if I’m not seen in Pennly.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “The king’s daughters cared more for me than he would have cared for them to. We parted on … less than friendly terms,” I say. “I was advised to leave his lands and never return. The twins cried for a week afterward. Or so I heard.”

  “Twins?” Ror snorts. “Did you ravish both his poor darlings?”

  “Of course not,” I say, offended, though I suppose I shouldn’t be. I’ve done my share of ravishing, but never sisters. And certainly never twins. The thought is vaguely repellent, in fact. “I was trying to convince the firstborn, the one named to inherit, to marry me, but her sister couldn’t seem to help falling for me right along with Priscelle.”

  “But Papa didn’t approve of the match.”

  “To put it mildly.”

  “Because of your father?” Ror asks, his tone softening. “Because of what he does to his sons?”

  “He didn’t know about that. I was surprised Crimsin did,” I say, uncomfortable again. I hate the pity in Ror’s voice when he mentions my father. “No, King Thewen was still angry that Kanvasola refused to come to his aid during the war.” I shrug. “It doesn’t matter. I’m glad it didn’t work out. If I’d married Priscelle, I wouldn’t have met you or enjoyed all these wonderful adventures.”

  Ror snorts again. “At least the dinner in Goreman was good.”

  “It was. And Priscelle and I weren’t a good match. She smelled of vinegar, refused to ride a horse, and had an unnatural love of cats.”

  “Cats?”

  “She had six. Kept them in her bedroom,” I say with a mock shudder. “Long-haired cats, short-haired cats, even a bald bastard with wrinkly gray sk
in and yellow fangs.” I smile as Ror laughs. “Scariest thing I’ve seen in years. I never would have slept easy with that thing curled at the end of the bed like a goblin escaped from the Pit.”

  Ror’s laugh becomes a giggle that reminds me that—no matter how determined or skilled a fighter he is—he is still so young. Now perhaps he’ll have the sense to go back into hiding until he has the chance to grow up.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, watching his profile in the pale light of the half-moon. “I know you had high hopes for the Feeding Hills.”

  “It’s all right.” Ror stares down at the trees drifting by beneath us. “Surely one of the rulers of Herth will be willing to aid an enemy of Ekeeta’s.”

  I pause, momentarily speechless. “You’re joking.”

  Ror glances up, his gray eyes silver in the moonlight. “No. There’s still time. I can’t give up.”

  “And what about the ogre queen?” I struggle to keep my anger in check. “Do you think she’s going to stand back and let you roam around Herth hunting an army?”

  “I know it will be difficult, but—”

  “It will be impossible. You’ll be captured within a week,” I snap. “Your only hope is to find a place to hide, whether that’s in Frysk or back on that island you came from or wherever else the Fey can find to conceal you.”

  “I can’t hide forever,” Ror says. “My friend—”

  “Your friend will have to die.”

  “Don’t say that,” Ror whispers, expression darkening.

  I curse beneath my breath, amazed that he can still shock me with his stubbornness. “You’re out of your mind! I can’t believe the fairies let you out of their sight in the first place.”

  “They didn’t. I crept out when they weren’t watching,” Ror says, heat in his tone. “And I’m not out of my mind. What if it were your sister in Ekeeta’s dungeon? Would you give up on her so easily?”

  “It’s not my sister. And it’s not yours, either.” I pause as a terrible suspicion worms its way into my mind. “Or were you lying to me? Is Aurora—”